- #1
AsmSight
Overall I'd say I'm a somewhat secure person; though definitely a bit weaker than average, I'm not an emotional wreck except for when it comes to one thing: doubt of my capacity/potential, which has lately bothered me a lot. Any time of IQ or intellectual superiority are mentioned I go crazy. I'm fifteen (a sophomore in high school) and this has been my bane for many years. I'm thinking it's mainly because I'm drawn to computer science, a field with many very intelligent people, and I feel like I can't really compare. At my school a lot of people say things such as that I'm the next Bill Gates or his son, I'm the smartest person they've ever met, etc., but I think I'm just relatively, narrowly and contextually knowledgeable. That's part of why my anxiety feels hopeless. No matter what I do, I have a feeling I'll never think much of my own ability or accomplishments. Put that way it sounds like drive, but much more often I have an attitude of "you probably couldn't do it anyway," leading me to give up on things I know, looking back, I shouldn't have. I do not know what my IQ is. Today I was nearly having a panic attack and took one and scored 115, but despite the terrible environment (optimistically, it was late in the day and I couldn't take advantage of the time because every time a family member walked by my spot central in the house I hid the tab for fear of criticism because they know I worry a lot about it and would tell me to not), I know online tests are inaccurate and almost always give a score quite a bit higher than what would be expected from an official test, and even if I have an IQ of 115 I wouldn't be satisfied because statistically, that's a significantly limiting factor for what I want to do, which, if I have complete choice, is to start a software company. I used to do the same a couple years ago. Late at night I'd start panicking and take IQ tests, getting the same uninterpretable and wide range of 85-180. It was partly this anxiety that led me to dabble in psychedelics, and though I've gotten some revelations, sadly, this was unaffected. I'm really not sure what to do. Doubt and criticism have become part of almost every thought. If I ask myself whether I've become something better, I can only respond with the doubts I've seen in others. How can I end this suffering? Telling myself that IQ doesn't matter anyway doesn't help. It wasn't always so bad. The last year I almost forgot about it, but for reasons unknown to me, it recently returned as bright as ever. I ask this on this site because I saw a similar person post a similar problem and it was responded to intelligently, though sadly his reasons were very different from mine now. If anyone has bothered to read through all this, what am I to do? I could live like this forever but that forever seems awfully long if I won't be able to stop trying to compare myself.